Empty Soul
by Mononoke-hime x sukai kurora
Summary: Levi had never known love. Until now. Spoilers for chapter sixty-nine.


_Empty Soul_

He had never known love. Never. Even as a child, he had known that his birth was not a day of celebration. When Levi looked into Historia's eyes and saw the emptiness inside those blue depths as she told them about her past, he understood. _My very existence is a tragedy,_ they seemed to say. Levi understood. He had been her once. Although it had been many years since he had been a child, the man could still remember of the hard bread and thin soup that Kenny had given him after three days in that hellhole. There, no one gave a shit about him. Not even his own mother.

Levi only had faint memories of her. Before she had died, long midnight hair had reached to her shoulders, and her dark gray eyes exhausted and tinted in sorrow and despair. If he had any tender memories of her, he was too young to remember them. He remembered the time when she had given him a bath – a necessity in that shithole – and her eyes far away from him, her expression dull and wilting. As a member of the Survey Corps, Levi had often seen mothers with children, a gentle expression on their faces as they held the tiny hands in their own. Levi could never remember his mother holding his hand on his. He couldn't remember her holding him close to her, soothing away their night terrors. Even at the tender age of two, Levi knew that he could not make a sound. And so horrific sounds in the night – the screaming, the groans, and the violence – embedded in his mind as silent tears ran down his face. He always had to dry his own tears away.

The only instruction his mother gave to him was that his name was Levi. _"Just Levi,"_ she told him. The brat he had been simply nodded as his mother gave him a very small smile that disappeared as quickly as it had come. As he watched her sleep as he lied against the small cot that was his own bed, Levi wondered why he had been born. He supposed that his mother had loved him. If she hadn't, then she would have abandoned him into an alley like other countless shitty infants, leaving him to die.

She had feed him, bathed him, and soothed when his memories were not yet formed. He told himself that whenever he and his mother were silent as they ate their meager food, stuffing it into their desperate mouths. He told himself that whenever he hid whenever the men came, groans and screams echoing in his ears as tears ran down his face. Sometimes his mother was too exhausted to take care of him, so the small child was often left with nothing but his thoughts as hunger reached him. Levi was only four years old.

His mother had died. Levi felt nothing but emptiness as he saw her take her final breath. His large eyes saw her formerly dark hair stark white, her lips cracked and her face incredibly thin. Almost like his own. Levi hadn't eaten for three days. His legs were weak, and his hands were almost skeletal. Despite his efforts of taking care of her, his mother had died. Levi had waited in the room, breathing the same air as his mother had before her death, wondering vaguely if someone was going to come into the room now. Of course they didn't. No one cared about people there.

Levi had seen a murder before his very eyes, the blood splattered on the walls, and the human beneath it cold and lifeless, her eyes open and staring. Her body had been dumped afterword, but Levi hadn't heard any screaming or yelling about the dead woman. They wouldn't care if his mother had died. Nor would they give a shit if he died either. He spent three days with his mother's body before Kenny came.

Kenny didn't love him. Perhaps he cared for him, yes….but he didn't love him. At four years old, Levi had been taken away from that shitty place and taken to another one. Kenny did teach him how to fight, though. Levi still remembered of how the knife first felt in his hand, cold and slim. He had seen more dead bodies than he cared to count, their throats slit and blood gushing out their necks. Eventually the bodies ceased to faze him. _"They all look the same when they're dead,"_ Kenny had told him. _"Except if you don't aim right."_ Levi remembered of the knife, glistened with blood, as it was pointed at his skinny neck. His clothes were still too big for him. The knife had been passed to him, and it was the first time that Levi felt blood against his hands. The man and the boy lived in several different places during their time together, to keep a step up from their enemies.

" _Live as if you're about to die, you shitty brat."_ Kenny almost never called him by his name. Expect when he was angry and all Levi saw was blood. His own. Eventually, the beatings and the torture – Levi remembered specifically of Kenny holding a gun to his head, tell him he would kill him if he didn't complete his one hundred thirty push- ups, among many other scenarios – ceased to faze him as well. Pain and agony and _rage_ seemed to be his only friend. _"Pain is the best punishment."_ As he held his head in agony as blood dripped from a deep cut near his eye, Kenny smiled as the dark haired boy as he continued to fight him head-on.

Levi knew that Kenny could have killed him without a thought. He could have slit his throat like all the hundreds of shitty Military Police. Why then, did he feel such anger and despair when Kenny had left him? Why did he feel so broken when he glanced back at the last hell-hole Kenny had the sarcasm to call home? Levi had been eight years old, and it was that time that he realized that he would have to be much stronger than he was if he hoped to live in a place Kenny spoke of. And so the brat Levi had been died, and a new one had been born. He had thirteen when he had met Isabel. He hadn't understood why he had stopped. He had just stopped cleaning his bloody knife and his knuckles bruised and the skin slightly broken when he had found a brat with dark red hair, dying as he pulled her face towards her own as he stared at her. Levi didn't know why he bothered. Kenny had taught him that those who died were weak, and that didn't deserve to live because they didn't have the strength. Why did he stop and stare into the child's broken eyes though?

He could see her ribs poking against the long shirt that she wore, and noted of the dead bodies surrounding her. Blood coated against her cheek. Garbage and filth smeared the ground. Still, why was his heart existing when he had picked her up and put her still hands around his shoulders? Why did he bathe her, changed her filthy clothes and gave her his bed as she slept? Why…did he feel something in his heart when she awoke and called him _oniichan_?

They lived together for many years before Farlan came. They never talked about each other's past. That was one rule of the Underground. Despite of his rule for never allowing a person to stay with him, he had tolerated Isabel's presence until she wasn't tolerated anymore. He had told him sullenly months after she had healed that she was welcome to join his group. Levi still remembered of how he had stiffened and his mind had screamed when the then nine year old girl had jumped onto his lap and hugged him as she screamed happily. Levi had found Isabel to be a good asset to his group – she was surprisingly quiet when she was focused, and small so that she could steal objects that not even Levi could.

She was the only one who could tease him about his height and not face a knife wound. Isabel was slowly becoming part of Levi's shitty world. When her hair grew long, Levi cut it. It surprised him when Isabel told him fiercely that she wouldn't allow him to cut her hair any longer. _"I…want pig tails…like the girls who live above,"_ she whispered shyly when the sky was dark. Levi's expression remained impassive, but he remembered how Isabel's face had lit up with joy when Levi came into her room and gave her two small orange bands, and for once, Levi didn't mind her hands around him as she buried her head into his chest.

Farlan joined the group three years before the three of them were forced into the Survey Corps. He had belonged to a rival gang before most of the members had abandoned him. Levi still remembered the shock on his face when he had beat up the supposed strongest member of his group. At first, Levi remained wary of Farlan. The man could have just joined the group for revenge for his subordinate position, but as Levi watched as Isabel laughed with Farlan, the raven-haired man started to trust him.

The months became years, and Levi saw the blonde as a friend. Like Isabel, Levi couldn't simply separate himself them from himself. As he watched them sleep one night when Isabel had run into his room with a growling Farlan in tow, frightened from a nightmare, Levi remembered of how Isabel had buried her face into his chest, his name on her lips, as Farlan sighed in exasperation and lied down next to his shorter friend. Levi found himself with Isabel sleeping against his chest, her fingers grasping his shirt. Farlan was beside him, his face turned toward Levi and his posture in a slightly protective positon as he slept. _I wonder how much they know that I…_ Levi stopped himself before he could go any farther. He didn't know love. He couldn't even recognize it when he saw it. As the emptiness filled within him, Levi wondered vaguely what he truly felt for those two sleeping beside him.

And then…

Even now sometimes he found himself waking from a nightmare pouring with rain. Despite the passage of time, Levi could still see their faces. Isabel's head, her blood dark against the rain that poured down, her beautiful green eyes staring. Farlan, his body whole but dead, against his feet as he stood to face the Titans. Their screams and their goodbyes burned into his mind. What was it that he felt when they died? Was it grief? Horror? Why did he feel so empty and want to drown whenever he had those nightmares? The worst was when the Titans had the faces of his squad. Seeing them alive in a nightmare. Since he had joined the Survey Corps and become Erwin's right-handed man, many people had whispered of how emotionless he was. Of how he wasn't even human. Those words ceased to cut him. Seeing Petra's face, her blood dark against the tree…another pair of eyes _open_ drove him to madness.

Levi knew his squad loved him. He knew by the way they interacted with him, and the smiles glowing in the darkness. He knew by the greetings they gave him, from the special tea Petra gave him every morning, her gentle presence soothing him when no amount of pain could. She had loved him. Levi wasn't sure what to think of that. He had realized that after Isabel's and Farlan's deaths that to get close to someone was suicide. It would be a regret that would kill him, if the goddamn Titans didn't. Still… As he watched her hair shine in the sun like gold and her eyes burn as she killed another Titan, hearing her beautiful voice sing when she thought no one would hear her, Levi wondered what love felt like. _Could I have loved you?_ he had thought as he watched her body fall onto the cold hard ground. Seeing her face for one last time. Levi remembered of the briefest kiss they had shared, the night before the expedition. _Could I have loved you, Petra?_

When he had found Kenny lying against the tree dying, Levi had stopped to think how ironic it was that yet another person in his life was about to die. He heard Kenny's voice in his mind, grating and sarcastic even as the blood dripped from his face. Levi hadn't been able to say a word as Kenny's blood coated against his cheek, and told him that he was an idiot. Levi only stood for what seemed like infinity when Kenny took his last breath. _He was…my uncle…_ Levi felt his characteristic mask begin to crack. _He…_ Levi could only think of the time when Kenny had left him, his tall back towards him, never looking back. Their bonded had been fucked-up, but it had been a bond nonetheless. Which was why Levi found himself smiling at the sight of his comrades.

He had never smiled before. The memories of his shitty childhood and adolescence provided a reason for that. He could have found a reason to smile from the two beloved names that he refused to speak, but…he was afraid. He was afraid that if he smiled, if he showed if his entire being that he would _die_ if their existence only became a memory. He had almost smiled when Petra had held his face in his own and kissed him with the love she had for him, but he stopped before he could. _I was afraid of what I truly was._ As Levi walked the halls beyond his stunned subordinates, he thought of what had just occurred. _Kenny's words and very death helped me accept…who I truly am. My emotions…and everything that came with it is running through my mind right now. I wonder…did they…know I truly loved them before I did?_ Levi closed his eyes and saw their faces in their mind. _Yes. I think so. I…believe they knew of my feelings before myself._ A strange peace came over him. _I_ have _known love…_

 _My heart…my soul…is no longer empty._

A small smile graced his face as Levi cried.


End file.
